


Verse 24

by saaliyah



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale has a lot of feelings but he is learning folks, Crush, Growth is good, Happy Ending, Inspired by Richard Siken, M/M, Other, You are Jeff is heavily quoted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 03:56:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20221396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saaliyah/pseuds/saaliyah
Summary: He finds the book left open on the park bench. It is well worn with pages bent and curved over and wrinkles cracking the cover. But even without all these signs, it is radiating off of it in waves.This book is loved. He picks it up, turns it over. In large, black sans serif, the letters C R U S H are spelled out. Well. He hasn’t read anything new in some time. His thumb flicks to a post-it note marking the section called You Are Jeff. Aziraphale settles into the bench and begins.





	Verse 24

He finds the book left open on the park bench. It is well worn with pages bent and curved over and wrinkles cracking the cover. But even without all these signs, it is radiating off of it in waves.

This book is loved. He picks it up, turns it over. In large, black sans serif, the letters **C R U S H** are spelled out. Well. He hasn’t read anything new in some time. His thumb flicks to a post-it note marking the section called You Are Jeff. Aziraphale settles into the bench and begins.

** _The one in front will want to_ **

** _take you apart, and slowly. His deft and stubby fingers searching every_ **

** _shank and lock for weaknesses. You could love this boy with all your_ **

** _heart. The other brother only wants to stitch you back together. The_ **

** _sun shines down._ **

Something in his throat has gripped him by its claws, trying to crawl out. He always forgets that words can do this to you until it hits with full force again. Aziraphale coughs, his hand splayed on his chest. Breathes in. Tries to return some semblance of self. But there is a soft voice in the back of his mind. _The one in front has claimed you, since the beginning of time. They want to search you and haunt you and find every weakness. You could choose them, should choose them with all your heart. The other one only wants to stitch you back together._

He closes the book with a snap and begins to put it right back. Someone else can take it. There’s an owner out there somewhere. And even if they don’t come back, there’s so much love in this book, _someone else will take it._ Aziraphale can’t. He just- He just can’t.

The angel leaves for dinner with the book snug inside his coat pocket.

* * *

**_Let’s say God in his High Heaven is hungry and has decided to make_  
** _**himself some tuna fish sandwiches. He’s already finished making two**_  
_** of them, on sourdough, before he realizes that the fish is bad. What is**_  
_** he going to do with these sandwiches? They’re already made, but he**_  
_** doesn’t want to eat them.**_

“Crowley?” Aziraphale calls out. He is deep in wine. He opened the book again, to another earmarked corner. He has decided he will go through all the earmarks and then put the book back. It has an owner after all. Someone who loves it.

He called him over. It is not completely unusual for him to have invited Crowley to the shop. Most of the time they end up there or he drops or he calls, but sometimes…sometimes Aziraphale calls. Crowley’s head is leaned on his shoulder. He had imagined the pressure would have been lighter, but Aziraphale likes it. The weight to him, it makes him feel real. They are real. He is glad he called.

It brings up memories fo centuries long gone. When they held hands, held each other, pressed soft kisses in the way of those men then sealed their promises.  
It brings up guilt and heartache. He was never supposed to have felt Crowley’s lips in any vow.

He has never forgotten the taste.

“Yes, angel?” his voice is low, a nearly unintelligible hiss. It must be one of the softest sounds Aziraphale has ever heard. In between thoughts of Crowley sleepily lazed around him, he wonders if one would still call a sandwich a sandwich if it wasn’t worthy of being eaten.

He cards his fingers through the dark curls. They are longer here, now. This is how he has always liked it, this is how Aziraphale sees him when he closes his eyes. All of his eyes. Its image that reminds him his body is his own.

Crowley is asleep again, a question unanswered.

“I hope you dream of things you’d like best.” But Aziraphale is left alone with an image of demons fighting over scraps.

He swears to himself he will not open that book again.

* * *

He can’t help it. The spine was so bent in one spot that the book’s natural state was open and bare and unafraid of showing this one page. Verse 24.

Aziraphale reads it once. He does not cry. He will not allow a tear to even form. There is tea to make and books to reshelve. Miraculously, he finds the work of ten men before him. That lasts a day. Maybe two? He would have to know when he began to be sure.

He returns. He reads it again. And again.

Then he picks up the phone.

“Would you care for a drive?”

* * *

** _You’re in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won’t tell you that he loves you,_ **

That feeling in his throat? It has traveled along arteries and blood vessels to the ends of his of whole chest.

** _but he loves you._ **

But he loves Aziraphale. Loves him patiently and kindly, but he loves him. It has always been love, hasn’t it.

** _And you feel like you’ve done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself_ **

** _a grave in the dirt, and you’re tired._ **

Aziraphale has always wondered why he is as he is. What image is he made in? He has screamed and cried and softly sobbed out that question.

There has never been an answer. He had resigned himself to the idea that it might be _you did this to yourself. _Because it would be easier if he had been able to stay away. Keep good on all those promises to never return, on the venom of those insults, on a complex of superiority. But -

** _You’re in a car with a beautiful boy,_ **

But he’s in a car with a beautiful boy.

** _and you’re trying not to tell him that you love him, and you’re trying to_ **

And Aziraphale has been clinging to this secret for centuries, for millennia,

** _choke down the feeling, and you’re trembling, but he reaches over and_ **

and he is sick of choking it down, of hating it and himself and God for inventing the worst kind of punishment so Aziraphale reaches over

**he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your**

and places one hand over his, and it is a prayer, a prayer to Crowley, a prayer and an apology and a declaration, and then he looks at Aziraphale and it’s like finally, finally

** _heart taking root in your body, like you’ve discovered something you_ **

his heart has taken root in his body, his own body, and it’s like the Earth is brand new and there is an eternity left of he things he never

** _don’t even have a name for._ **

thought he would get to name.

* * *

He is holding a hand that is not his own. It is not raised in prayer, it is lowered by his side, by their side in a self-serving act of reverence.

Aziraphale is learning that it is good to be self-serving.

He is also learning that it is good to hold Crowley’s hands. To kiss them from his palm to his lifeline, on every knuckle and wrinkle and corner of skin. And these hands? They hold him in return. They are holding him right now as Crowley and Aziraphale lean into the park bench. There is a book in his lap.

It is slow. He is still learning. But Aziraphale enjoys taking his time.

**Author's Note:**

> Quotes are from You Are Jeff by Richard Siken verse 1, 5, and of course 24.
> 
> inspo from this anon: "okay but aziraphale reading richard siken for the First Time and reading that one poem that starts like," youre in a car with a beautiful boy and he wont tell you that he loves you but he loves you" and he discorporates immediately"
> 
> Follow me @saaliyah on tumblr for more fic, art, and gifsets
> 
> Thank you for reading! This one was really a labor of love and I hope you enjoyed it.


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